What have the nannies done to Churchill?

[Edmund Onward James]

Churchill's picture with a cigar has been altered by the British Nannies...

Sir Martin Gilbert, a delightful gentleman, astute, and is the official biographer of Winston Churchill, stated: HOW BIZARRE.

[HabanoSy]

Yep, posted on a couple of other threads...

Absolutely bloody ridicuolus and disrespectful, IMHO...

Cheers, HabanoSy

[cj121]

A globally hot topic, and outrage at that, this one

[Son of Cigarsmoke]

They made him look like he's just had a stroke or something

[captain duff]

Interesting story, but I think that the title is somewhat misleading. This appears to have been done at a small independant museum that is not even govt/local authority controlled/funded (so would have no connection with the 'nanny' state), and if you take the comments at face value it didn't even happen with the knowledge/agreement of the museum bosses.

And while there is certainly a big wider issue regarding over-zealous 'health-fascists' in British society, this is not really a good or even accurate example of that. Certainly when it comes to what might be termed 'government' (and therefore potentially 'nannie') history I've never noticed a problem with his cigar in images, either at places like the govt funded Imperial War Museum, govt funded English Heritage, or in school text books (and I'm a qualified teacher of history at secondary level so have seen plenty of churchill pics - complete with cigar - in them), so like I say I think the title of this thread misleads somewhat...

[rollzst]

What have the nannies done to Churchill?

I think Churchill would be rolling over in his grave if he knew about this, he considered smoking cigars a fundemental right of his. He would be outraged at all of these smoking bans too!

[Edmund Onward James]

Captain Duff, I do believe Churchill smoked organic cigars. Maybe the nannies will lighten up.

[captain duff]

Captain Duff, I do believe Churchill smoked organic cigars. Maybe the nannies will lighten up.

Whatever, but the fact remains that you have essentially posted either a 'non-story' or tried to adapt something that essentially appears very tenuous to a pre-conceived view (and in the process a few posters appear to have got worked up without actually realising this). Who, in this particular case, are the 'nannies', because reading the original Telegraph article I honestly can't spot any obvious suspects? The term you use normally refers to the state, and yet this happened at a small private museum that, as I understrand things, has no state involvement or funding (other than its charitable status).

I am genuinely interested in what you meant, because having taught British history (including quite a bit on Churchill) for a number of years at both GCSE and A Level, and also of course being a cigar smoker and so sensitive to these things, I have yet to come across this sort of historical revisionism before in any sort of officially government sanctioned situation...

[nev coss]

they did the same with Isimbard Kingdom Brunel, airbrushed his cigar out, nannies which ever way you look at it

[Burner]

What have the nannies done to Churchill?

Unfortunately this sort of thing is an example of the way goverment policy on tobacco pervades society in general. The people that produced the poster obviously thought they needed to change the image to avoid controversy or criticism. It might not be direct governmental intervention but it us certainly a symptom of it.

[Soulmanure]

Interesting story, but I think that the title is somewhat misleading. This appears to have been done at a small independant museum that is not even govt/local authority controlled/funded (so would have no connection with the 'nanny' state), and if you take the comments at face value it didn't even happen with the knowledge/agreement of the museum bosses.

I looked at a couple articles on this, and it appears that the Cap' is right here--there is no clear cause of this removal, so we can't blame the so-called nanny state for this. By the way, I think the phrase 'nanny state' is rather interesting and, in my opinion, silly: why a nanny? Never had one myself, and it strikes me that the most intrusive and controlling governments in history were run by men, though, of course, most governments in history were/are run by men.

[macker89]

I think if Churchill had had access to digital photo manipulation at the time he'd have insisted on having his cigars made to look bigger!!

[captain duff]

Well of course photo touching was well established by then anyway, making it's most famous early entrance with the removal of Trotsky (followed by others) by Stalin from pictures that showed him and Lenin working closely together.

But there is the interesting issue from the period where the media of the time went along with a long and deliberate situation of essentially fooling the public in how F D Roosevelt was always photographed. FDR of course was disabled (it was thought from polio but other culprits have been postulated recently) and used a wheelchair. But this, at the time, was seen as a weakness (this was the period in the UK of course where many physically disabled people were from birth put into institutions and effectively hidden from society), and so in the days before live TV the US photographers and movie news film makers basically agreed never to show this fact and most of the public never knew. This was extended during the war to the media of the allies who also went along with it, and it is why whenever you see pictures of FDR, Churchill and Stalin at the famous Yalta Conference that agreed on what would happen in Europe once the nazis were defeated all three of them are always pictured sitting down - and this was for FDR's benefit. Of course this can be viewed as a rather harmless deception (which of course it was), but it was a deception nevertheless...

[Soulmanure]

JFK's severe pain and illness was also kept from the public--apparently it was often in quite debilitating pain. Also, there are the affairs, but that was an entirely different time in terms of the media, when, for better or worse, they wouldn't publish all of the lurid details of the lives of the rich and powerful.